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It's the beginning of the school year yet again and you think I would be busy scooping together great lessons for the tweens but no, it's grading, grading practices, formative, summative, diagnostic, checkpoints, exit tickets.....if you have never been a teacher or have been out of the system for awhile it's a shocker. But I will PERSEVERE!

It's also around this time that I think about all of the different types of learners we have in every classroom. It's not tough to see that I am obviously a visual learner. But something amazong happened to me last summer actually and I just sat down to draw it all out. I am a synesthete.
Here is a basic definition:

Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people's names with a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor. The word synesthesia comes from two Greek words, syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means "joined perception."Synesthesia can involve any of the senses. The most common form, colored letters and numbers, occurs when someone always sees a certain color in response to a certain letter of the alphabet or number. For example, a synesthete (a person with synesthesia) might see the word "plane" as mint green or the number "4" as dark brown. There are also synesthetes who hear sounds in response to smell, who smell in response to touch, or who feel something in response to sight. Just about any combination of the senses is possible. There are some people who possess synesthesia involving three or even more senses, but this is extremely rare.Synesthetic perceptions are specific to each person. Different people with synesthesia almost always disagree on their perceptions. In other words, if one synesthete thinks that the letter "q" is colored blue, another synesthete might see "q" as orange.

Here's an explanation of what I do:

Projected: rather than experiencing something in the "mind's eye," as might happen when you are asked to imagine a color, a synesthete often actually sees a color projected outside of the body.

I also have a specific color assigned to numbers as well as personalities. And I HAVE to HAVE spatially place numbers, dates and times. Here is how I see my year, weeks and number line.

I can always tell you if we are on the UP or DOWN week.....we are on the down in case you were wondering.

at the end of my year you slide back to January, really.

and they go on on their skyscraper for infinity

Fascinating stuff eh? My mom has a form of synesthesia, she orders her numbers in a particular way too. Now, I don't have the most exciting forms (like taste and seeing sound) .Many people have this but don't even know it. Bobby (the hub) says well, THIS explains A LOT. And indeed it does, my brain is cross wired and IT is actually more fun (well, I say it is)....